I was just browsing the New York Times website and came across this article written by a Libération journalist shortly after the shootings at the newspaper offices a few weeks ago, before it was known that the shooter was a far-left Arab with Jihad sympathies. Look at the grotesque way in which she tries to use the incident to stigmatise the political opponents of the Left, just as was done with the jihadist Mohamed Merah.

Here at Libération, we have blood in the hall. A war zone in the middle of Paris, right by the Place de la Republique. In 2013.

...Libération is a daily newspaper of the Left founded in 1973 by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir — this year, almost to the day, we are celebrating our 40th anniversary. Libération is a “liberal” or “progressive” newspaper, as you might say in the United States. Editorially, it is supportive of gay marriage, a recent controversy in France. Traditionally, Libération also takes positions against racism and xenophobia. Earlier this month, the newspaper ran a long interview with Christiane Taubira, France’s black minister of justice, who had promoted the government’s new law permitting same-sex marriage.

In October, a candidate for the National Front compared Ms. Taubira to a “monkey.” Picking up on the theme, right-wing demonstrators taunted her with a banana. At first, Ms. Taubira maintained a dignified silence about the abuse, but finally, she told Libération: “These racist attacks are attacking the heart of our democracy.”

“Millions of people are concerned when I’m being called a monkey,” she went on. “Our society is disintegrating.”

A strange, febrile atmosphere has indeed fallen over France. What was once taboo is no longer impermissible. All of a sudden, it seems respectable to hold and express racist or anti-Semitic views — even to print them on the front page of a magazine, as the extreme right-wing weekly magazine Minute did.

Does this xenophobic ferment have anything to do with the lone shooter roaming around Paris with a loaded gun and possibly grenades? Nobody knows. As yet, we know nothing about the identity of this assailant, let alone his motive.

In war zones all over the world, of course, journalists are targeted or taken as hostages. The French press has not recovered from the cold-blooded murder of two French radio reporters early this month in Mali, slaughtered by Tuareg terrorists connected to Al Qaeda. But here, in Paris?

On Monday, Libération remained in lockdown, cordoned off by the police, as we all tried to digest the words of our publisher, Nicolas Demorand, who expressed the horror and anger we all felt: “To attack journalists just doing their job, in the middle of Paris, is a threat to our democracy.”

For now, we keep working, trying to be normal when nothing is normal. One of us went out to get sandwiches for everyone when it was impossible for all of us to go in and out past the police checkpoints.

Belatedly, politicians and public figures rallied to protest against the “monkey” abuse. Now, the blood in the hall of this newspaper, the young photographer’s assistant in critical condition, have shocked everyone, across the political spectrum. If this outrage breaks France’s fever, that may be some good news amid the bad.